Born in the bicultural/bilingual setting of El Paso, Texas/Juárez, Chihuahua, attended the University of Texas El Paso, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, & the University of Oregon. Professor Emeritus of Creative Writing & Literature, taught at the University of Oregon, Western State College of Colorado, Central Washington State University, the University of Texas El Paso, and Laney College, Oakland where he founded the Mexican and Latin American Studies Dept.

About Me

Rafael Jesús González, born in the bicultural/bilingual setting of El Paso, Texas/Juárez, Chihuahua, attended the University of Texas El Paso, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, & the University of Oregon. Professor Emeritus of Creative Writing & Literature, he has taught at the University of Oregon, Western State College of Colorado, Central Washington State University, the University of Texas at El Paso, and Laney College, Oakland (where he founded the Mexican and Latin American Studies Dept.)
He has thrice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He was Poet in Residence at the Oakland Museum of California and the Oakland Public Library under the Poets & Writers “Writers on Site” award in 1996. He served as contributing editor for The Montserrat Review and received the Annual Dragonfly Press Award for Literary Achievement in 2002. In 2003 he was honored by the National Council of Teachers of English & Annenberg/CPB for his writing. In June 2007, he was honored for excellence in poetry at the 20th World Congress of Poets, Montgomery, Alabama.

Monday, September 19, 2016

Why I am voting for Hillary Clinton; Apologia pro suffragium meum

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Why
I am voting for Hillary Clinton

Apologia
pro suffragium meum

I am in rage and in terror with the mean choices
given me in these U. S. presidential elections. Acknowledging that the empire
is hardly a democracy, and committed as it is to an unbridled capitalism without
regard for justice and suffering and disastrous for the Earth, what kind of
choices does one expect it to give us? Certainly between the "lesser of
evils", but more accurately between "a better of two choices both
terrifying, though let's be honest, not equally so.

Yes, I am terrified at the imminent danger of having
a totalitarian fascist government to head the empire under Donald Trump. Perhaps
it is because I am old enough to know or have known survivors of Hitler
Germany, fascist Italy, fascist Spain, later, survivors of fascist Guatemala, survivors
of fascist Uruguay, survivors of fascist Argentina, survivors of fascist Chile,
survivors of fascist El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras (all, except the first three,
in which the U.S. was directly or indirectly involved; that is the bitter
truth) — I could name others and I
probably know or have survivors of those. This is as close as I ever want to
come to a fascist regime.

For me it comes to the choice between a sane and
competent Machiavellian politician and an utterly mad fascist demagogue. The
question is which would cause less suffering, allow more hope of immediate
survival, and at least a spark of democracy that could be nurtured into a
little flame with a chance of spreading? To me the choice is very clear; I am
voting for Hillary R. Clinton.

No, I am not thrilled to do so. I have already long
told you why (if you have forgotten scroll down my blog
rjgonzalez.blogspot.com.) With her we can expect that precious little will
change. (Though honestly, I do not know that she would be so much worse than
our Pres. Barack Obama with his murderous drones, insistence upon the TPP, deportations
of immigrants, increasing of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, and criminal support of
our pal Saudi Arabia's war of aggression on Yemen.) We take our chances, and
with her the chances are indubitably better than they would be under the fascist
Republican candidate.

Consider a government under the psychopath (not
name-calling, but a considered judgment), racist to the core, misogynist, profoundly
ignorant, given to rage, impulsive, a willful and arrogant megalomaniac. Imagine
his finger on the greatest nuclear arsenal on Earth, the greatest military
power in the world. Consider him in control of the CIA, the FBI, Homeland
Security. Imagine whom he would appoint to the Supreme Court. Consider
him and those that support him, those he has riled up by appealing to the
deep-running vein of toxic racism that infects the culture, the love of violence
manifested in its passion for guns. He has already endorsed violence,
lawlessness, bigotry; imagine, with his encouragement, the U.S. military and
policing institutions already transparently racist. Forget about women's
rights, immigrant rights, GLBT rights, justice at all. Forget the environment
and health of the Earth. Given his madness, even if reigned in a bit by advisers
a little more sane, consider who his advisors would be.

Yes, I will vote for Clinton. Some accuse me of
having fallen into the politics of fear. Yes, I have already admitted to you
that I am terrified. Many of you have said that you would vote for Jill Stein according
to your conscience, especially those of you living in California, a "safe
state" as you call it, because it is strongly "Clinton" or
Democrat and you deem it at little risk that it would go to the madman.

Ah, dear friends, forgive me if your
"conscience" sounds a bit like a smug luxury to me, a conscience you
may follow only because it seems "safe" for you to do so. Would you
be voting for Dr. Stein if you lived in a "swing" state or a "red"
state? Even as you turn your backs on Hillary Clinton you know that Trump must
be defeated. (A "safe" conscience would be one protected from its
consequences.)

A conscience that is free of rational fear (of a
real and imminent danger) is either saintly, foolish, or both. I assure you
that I am neither. Let us be very honest; the government of the U.S., a
plutocracy, is based on a two-party system, currently one neo-liberal, the
other neo-conservative, with often little actual differences between them (the
Democrats being better in domestic policy and in acknowledging climate change,
though admittedly not too willing to do enough about it), both committed to
capitalism, the economics of empire which the Earth and humanity cannot sustain.

We cannot change this overnight. Even if Dr. Stein of
the Green Party were St. Francis, I would not vote for her (pace Francesco, both of you.) Imagine
for an instant that by some miracle of miracles she could be elected president
of the empire. It would be worse than throwing her to the lions. The Green
Party simply does not have a strong enough political base and it is far too late
for it to build one.

As you know, I endorsed and campaigned for Sen.
Bernie Sanders whole heartedly because we agreed on almost every point — on
justice, on peace, on our reverence for the Earth. We his supporters carried
him (our money, our energy, our enthusiasm, our commitment) as far as we could
carry him to the very edge of the nomination. The political establishment of course
was against him. But he reminded us that it was not about him, or even electing
him president, but changing the Democratic party so that it truly represents
our interests, ours of the people, not the corporations, not the rich — and
that together we could do it.

He came to the very threshold of the nomination, got
what concessions he could, and then endorsed Clinton as the only viable
alternative to the maniac — after pushing the party platform so much toward
justice that it is claimed to be the most progressive platform ever. It is a
platform that the Democrats cannot ignore without courting great outcry
from within the party and out. Changes have already been made.

Many of us were greatly disappointed, angry, even
felt betrayed by Sanders' endorsement of Clinton. Some explained Bernie's
endorsement by supposing that he feared for his life. (A possibility in the
realm of things.) Many said that they would vote for Dr. Jill Stein, some said
that they would write in Bernie Sanders, some said that they would not vote at
all - all options dangerous to the utmost.

The following of the Republican presidential
candidate is huge and it is aggressively militant drawing the white
supremacists, the far Christian right, the nativists, the women-haters, the homophobes,
the "Patriots" and other rightwing militias, racists and nationalist
bigots of every sort, the Republicans and their huge wealth. If you believe we
out-number them, you hold a much more sanguine view of the nation than I. Even
in California, there are a great many of these folk. As of now the
Republican voter registration much out-numbers the Democratic voter
registration. The poles indicate that Clinton and Trump are alarmingly
close, neck-to-neck in many states. In fact, as the elections draw toward the end.
the race tightens, Trump needs just 15 electoral votes to win. And
many of us are in blind denial, for some reason trusting Hillary Clinton will
win, perhaps in denial of the racism and violence, bigotry and hate that runs
deep (often - unconsciously) in the nation's
psyche.

No state is safe. And even if it were, Hillary
Clinton not only has to be elected, but elected with a huge majority as a
resounding rejection of Donald Trump, his abhorrent views, the base he
represents, and the Republican Party, fascist in essence.

No, I am not happy that I have to vote for Hillary
Clinton and not able to vote for Sanders, and I am not at all happy that the
U.S. is governed by a plutocratic oligarchy and that I must make do with the
better of two bad choices, one a great deal worse than the other. (A friend
from New Orleans reminded me of a bumper sticker popular in the 1991 race for
governor of Louisiana between Edwin Edwards, a notoriously corrupt politician,
and David Duke, a Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan who has endorsed Donald
Trump and now is running for the Senate: "hold your nose and vote for the
crook.")

I wish that my endorsement of Hillary Clinton were more
enthusiastic. For one thing, as journalist Lauren McCauley has observed, the
decline of Clinton's campaign has much to do with her failure to articulate a
bold, inspiring vision for voters, but she is a seasoned politician, sane, and smart.
She is aware of the huge swell that the Sanders campaign caused; will not
ignore the party platform we helped form. She will make a "good"
president of the U.S., not "good" as we would wish, but as much
"good" as we can expect at this juncture. Competent at least.
Certainly hugely more "good" than the openly fascist and totally
incompetent Trump would be.

I am
voting for Clinton following the advice of Sen. Bernie Sanders, Noam Chomsky,
Elizabeth Warren, Rachel Maddow, Michael Moore (who knows very well the
constituency behind Trump), among other Bernie Sanders partisans whom I
respect. She must win by a huge margin. We cannot risk anything less.

And
then all us who backed Bernie Sanders in his campaign, especially the young
folk on whom our revolution depends, must work at the grass roots, take city
governments and offices, county, state, nation, and reform the Democratic Party
into the people's party that it once promised to be, a true opposition party. Sanders is right; it will take too long to
build the political apparatus of a third party to make much difference in the
short time we have. Much more practical to occupy and reform from within the
Democratic Party with its already established political apparatus, and make our
revolution of hearts and minds to heal a world gone mad and an Earth wounded.

It will be far from easy. We must be prepared to
compromise our ideals for what is practical in the immediate situation to
continue Our Revolution. And be prepared to be jailed, beaten, have our blood
soak the blades of grass in the process, though not as immediately or as greatly
as under Donald Trump. I fear it will come to this: first we must
overwhelmingly defeat Donald Trump and the fascists.

Ultimately we vote our conscience; Just bear in mind
that at this juncture one's highest sense of right must be based on what will
cause the least amount of suffering for the greatest number of people — and all
our relations.